The present invention relates to a wall-mounted support rack, and more particularly to a rack having a wire frame shelf and a garment hanger rod in combination for supporting articles usually associated with residential laundry rooms.
Wire frame shelves and mounting hardware to match can be made available in disassembled form in retail stores at low cost. Retail consumers thus are responsible for the mounting of these shelves for themselves. Yet the known shelves are relatively difficult to mount. Many retail consumers are uncomfortable with and so would prefer to avoid measurement, lay-out and hand tool operations. Nevertheless, the known shelves usually come available as kits, with disassembled parts like angled brackets, side brackets and/or retaining clips. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,009.
The known wire frame shelves are more generally deficient at meeting the needs of specific storage situations at minimum cost. The present invention, for example, involves articles usually associated with residential laundry rooms. Such articles range from containers of powdered, liquid, and aerosol laundry products to garments hung on garment hangers. The known wire frame shelves are likely to be excessively sized or reinforced for the duty that involves laundry room articles, thereby resulting in needless additional costs.
Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a shelf system that is specially adapted for supporting laundry room articles, that is easy to mount, that is inexpensive, and that is durable and strong.
In accordance with the present invention, a laundry room support rack has a wire frame shelf supported by wire frame sides. Each frame side includes three wire segments. A horizontal segment extends between a rear connection and a forward connection. A vertical segment extends up from the rear connection to an upper connection. And a diagonal segment extends between the upper connection and the forward connection. Preferably, a cross member extends between the opposite upper connections, and supports two apertured fixtures, each of which receives a wall fastener like a screw. The diagonal segment is positioned relative to the shelf to provide side support for taller articles placed on the shelf. The laundry room support rack further includes a U-shaped segment with arms securely engaging the frame sides at positions near the front connections. The U-shaped segment has a horizontal base segment that permits the hanging of garment hangers thereon. The frame sides gain strength from the diagonal segments for supporting loads on the shelf and horizontal base segment.
The prior art shelves teach away from fixed racks like the present invention by suggesting that compact storage is achieved by the provision of collapsible assemblies of generally planar parts for packing in relatively compact cartons for economizing on shipment and storage costs. The laundry room support racks of this invention are nestable and can be made unitary and easier for homeowners to handle and install. The diagonal segments of the frame sides lie in vertical planes laterally out from the horizontal and vertical segments, thereby permitting one rack to nest with another like rack. Nestability permits the packing of relatively more racks in a single carton, thereby gaining more cost savings in the per-unit shipment and storage cost. Nestability also permits relatively greater numbers of racks to be displayed on retail store shelves.